Irradiance and temperature impact on thin film materials I-V curves H. Haloui #1 , K.Touafek 1 and M. Zaabat 2 1 Unité de Recherche Appliquée en Energies Renouvelables, URAER, Centre de Développement des Energies Renouvelables, CDER, 47133, Ghardaïa, Algeria. 2 Laboratoire des composants actifs et matériaux, université d’Oum El Bouaghi, Algeria. # haloui_h@uraer.dz Received: 08 April 2013, revised: 24 December 2013, accepted: 27 December 2013 Abstract: The thin-film solar cells are becoming increasingly used in various applications; this is mainly due to the continued high cost of mono or polycrystalline silicon. In addition, the thin film technology offers the most diverse applications including uses low solar irradiance. The main fields of thin film solar cells are: the chain of amorphous silicon (a-Si), the chain of cadmium telluride (CdTe) and chalcopyrite sector (CIS and CIGS material). In this paper, a study on the influence of light and temperature on the characteristics I (V) of different thin film photovoltaic cells (a-Si:H single, a-Si:H tandem a-Si:H tripple, CdTe and CIS) is detailed. Under standard conditions (illumination of 1000W/m 2 and cell temperature 25° C), we see that the CdTe is the closest that the monocrystalline silicon which has a maximum value of short circuit current material (3,26A). Keywords: Thin films, Efficiency, Electricity, irradiance, temperature. I. Introduction Thin films are the second generation of photovoltaic technology, they have many applications in various areas such as optics, electronics, sonsors in the photovoltaics technology. In this generation, there are three main channels: A. die amorphous silicon (a-Si) These cells are comprised of a glass substrate or plastic on which is deposited a thin layer of silicon [1], a process requiring very little energy. Although the performance of such cells is lower than crystalline cells (5-9%), which is due to the low mobility of charge carriers in these materials. B. The die telluride of cadmium (CdTe) It is a highly promising technology, allowing yields perfectly adequate (16.5%) in the laboratory. Share a bandgap of 1.5 eV perfectly adapted to the solar spectrum [2] and a very high absorption coefficient, only a layer of 2 μm is necessary to obtain a very opaque material and absorbing a large part of the solar spectrum. C. Chain chalcopyrite (CIS and CIGS material) Selenium copper and indium (CIS) is a ternary material having a chalcopyrite structure. It has a coefficient of absorption between 100 and 1000 times greater than that of amorphous silicon. Cells based on chalcopyrite quaternary material such as CIGS (Cu for (Ga, In) (Se, S)2) also has very interesting performance. Production of such cells (thin film) is less expensive than the first generation (crystalline silicon) since it consumes less semiconductor material and does not require going through the step of converting the silicon "wafers". The problem of second-generation cells is lower efficiency of this cell type (6-7% and 14% in the lab for the amorphous silicon) and the toxicity of certain elements (cadmium) for their manufacture. However, this generation has many advantages for niche applications such as flexible modules, with low lights or high temperatures. Selenium and copper indium (CIS), which is at the stage of industrial production and offers a yield of 10 to 12% for its commercial modules does not present problems of toxicity of cadmium [3,4]. II. Modeling of thin film photovoltaic cell The functioning of a photovoltaic cell is described by the "standard" model based on a single- diode (Figure 1), established by Shockley for a single PV cell and generalized for PV module by considering it as a set of identical cells connected in series / parallel [5, 6]. Journal of New Technology and Materials JNTM Vol. 03, N°02 (2013)32 - 36 OEB Univ. Publish. Co.